…Archie seemed to be in a bit of an existential crisis; when I would visit him he would insist that I join him at church, and attempt to teach me about Catholicism, but that same afternoon he would want to take me to a strip club and see if I could pick up a girl. We had a very uncomfortable visit to a strip club in DC; one visit was all I needed to see that Archie really could not handle friendly, naked women approaching us, as often happens at strip clubs…

…I thought Bloud would serve as a sympathetic ear. Bloud painted a somewhat pathetic picture of himself, explaining that without his career he would have nothing. He was nearing the mandatory retirement age, and he did not know what to do with himself once he was forced to retire. He described a haunting image he had of himself as a janitor somewhere, sweeping the floor, living out his retirement. He seemed like a sad and lost soul. That evening, when we both left to go our separate ways, we agreed that anything we talked about was just between the two of us…

…A new officer had joined our group. Bloud was an experienced officer, in his fifties, who I had heard much about. Apparently he had done some pretty exciting things years ago and he loved talking about his experiences, holding a captive audience in the young officers surrounding him. He delighted in telling tales of encounters with tigers and serving time in a hole in the ground somewhere in the Middle East. It was hard to imagine this slovenly, obese man doing anything besides eating pork rinds and drinking beer, but the stories were entertaining…

…One of the main issues he had was that he had acquired some very sensitive technical equipment from one of his contacts . This equipment was highly sought-after in the intelligence community. He needed a way to bring this equipment out of the country without getting arrested. If the intelligence service of the country discovered this equipment, he would be in extreme danger.
Jarod had an idea of how to get the equipment out, and he ran it by me. We decided the best thing to do was write this plan up in a cable and submit it to Headquarters for approval on his next trip . He accompanied this cable with some administrative-type cables that I knew Headquarters would insist on having in order to even consider this plan. They were all box-checking types of cables, but he needed them regardless. We both knew that Headquarters was fairly risk-averse, and they would never want to suggest the plan themselves, for fear that if it failed they would look bad, and someone would not get their promotion to 15, or SIS. Jarod wanted to take the risk. He knew that having the equipment in his house in-country was more dangerous. If the intelligence service of that country decided to focus on him because he was a foreigner living there, they would not be opposed to appearing at his residence and searching his belongings. Jarod was in constant fear of hearing that knock on the door, and he was a rare employee of the Agency in that he wanted to get things done, not sit around and talk about them…

…Even Carina, Annie’s friend, had been granted LWOP! She had been allowed to go on LWOP after a disastrous TDY to Guantanamo Bay where she had a relationship with a detainee. She had reportedly made quite a scene during this TDY trying to convince her co-workers that this detainee was innocent of the terrorist acts he was accused of. The extent of her inappropriate behavior was discovered when a note she passed to the detainee was confiscated. The note was signed “your sweetie.” As usual, her behavior was not documented, and a year later, after she returned from LWOP, all had been forgotten. In fact, she worked in Barry’s division; I knew this because he delighted in telling me stories about her frequent visits to his office to chat about boys…

…I arrived in to find a very disorganized office. Some of the people in the very large group forced in to these assignments did not even have desks to sit at yet. It was as if no one had planned for this surge of new people who were apparently so urgently needed. I was placed at a desk, but found I had no work to do…

…I had absolutely no CI experience, so I was baffled at how I could be chosen for this somewhat crucial aspect of work in this new division…

…Not that my appearance went unnoticed. During one particularly large delegation visit dinner, the Chief of a very large and prominent division spent the entire evening talking with me and not even acknowledging our foreign guests. He shamelessly insisted I sit next to him, ordered my dinner for me, offered to share his dessert with me and made sure he poured my wine himself when my glass became empty. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought we were on a date. Fortunately our foreign guests were not offended and actually found his behavior rather amusing. I cannot say that the Agency participants were amused though, as I noticed the horrified looks on many of their faces during this high level SIS’s antics…

…During my own polygraph examination the polygraphers had insisted that I showed a reaction to the question of involvement in terrorism. I was questioned for hours about the possibility that perhaps I had given money to a terrorist group or attended a KKK rally with my grandfather at some point in my life. These strange and quite inappropriate suggestions had soured me on the polygraph. Sometimes, making a determination on whether or not the person was suitable for a security clearance required interviewing the individual about questionable information in their files. Whether it was a previous bankruptcy or a disturbing sexual proclivity, I quickly learned that I did not enjoy delving into people’s most personal information in order to determine if they posed a risk to national security. The reading was definitely interesting sometimes. We all had our share of cases where the applicant had masturbated in an inappropriate venue, such as a shared office at work, or had sex with their pets. Some of these people would go on to receive a clearance, and possibly would be working right alongside us in our next assignments…

…As with all offices in the Agency, we of course had to have cake for as many occasions as possible. It did not matter if you were working on time-sensitive intelligence that could save lives, you had to stop and gather around a giant cake at some point at least once a month. Heaven help the individual who did not have a sweet tooth (like me) or was diabetic and refused the cake – your refusal would be so offensive to the women of the office and you would risk ostracization. I was not a fan of the cake, so I experienced many a forced-cake-eating episode during my time in this office..